Page 43 of Breaking Isolde

“You’re not the only one. Maybe if you hated me less, we could be something, but you chose this, now you get to lie in it.”

I keep her there, caged between my arms, for another minute. Then I guide her back to the ballroom, hand on the nape of her neck.

She moves like a puppet, limbs limp. Her mask is gone, lost somewhere in the struggle. The flowers are wilting in her hair.

She’s perfect.

Isolde stands silent, lips swollen, eyes dead. She’s a ruin, but she’s mine.

I walk her back to the platform, make her sit in my lap while I field questions from the Board.

Julian leans in, voice low. “You’re really going to break her, aren’t you?”

I stare at Isolde, her head bowed, hair covering her face.

“If she won’t learn her manners, then yes, I will force them down her throat until she chokes on them,” I say.

Colton doesn’t speak, but his eyes linger on her, softening at the edges.

Bam just grins. “She’ll make you work for it.”

I nod. “That’s the fun.”

The last act is always the hardest. Not because I lack the stomach for it—there’s nothing in me that recoils from cruelty—but because breaking something perfect always risks shattering it beyond repair.

The donors are thinning, last of the Board drifting toward the open bar, but the ones that matter are still here. The big names, the ones who hide in the shadows behind muscle and high gates.

Abelard has retreated to a velvet settee near the speaker’s podium, where a rotating cast of old men in tuxedos and women in dresses older than most of the student body hold court. They watch the floor with predatory patience, waiting for spectacle.

I give it to them.

I haul Isolde out of my lap and march her towards the one chair in the room that has the spotlight on it. There’s nothing else around it, but previous events have used this spot for humiliation rituals. Passages of Rite. This is the one I will use to force her into submission. Sitting, I settle in, legs spread. She hovers at my side, not daring to look up.

I pat my thigh. “Sit.”

She blinks, uncomprehending. For a second, I think she’ll refuse.

I grab her by the waist and pull her across my lap, dress bunching indecently high on her thighs. The movement snaps her spine straight, face going red beneath the remains of her mask. Her hair is tangled, flowers askew.

The room quiets.

I stroke her cheek with the back of my hand. “You’re doing so well,” I say, loud enough for the nearest donors to hear. “Almost like you’ve done this before.”

She starts to stand, but I clamp down, locking her in place. She makes a soft, wounded noise. I smile, showing teeth.

Ms. Valence glides over, her smile thin as a scalpel. “Our dear Mr. Grey,” she says, voice bright as frost. “I must say, if you break this one, you do Westpoint proud.”

I incline my head. “Just following tradition.”

She turns her gaze on Isolde, assessing. “You take to your role with surprising ease, Miss Greenwood.”

Isolde doesn’t answer. Valence presses a hand to her shoulder, not gentle, then floats away.

The guests edge closer, hungry for whatever comes next.

I lean in to Isolde’s ear. “You have a choice,” I whisper. “Kneel now, or I’ll spank your bare ass and have you on your knees in a way they’ll never let you forget. I’ll fuck your throat in front of every donor here, and I’ll come on your face like you’re nothing, and then I’ll make you thank me for it.”

“Please…”